Good morning Beautiful People!

Sometimes, I am amazed when educated adults instantly latch on to crowd hysteria. Because shopping during the sales is not a leisure activity: it is an addictive stimulant as hazardous as a battlefield, physically and financially. That is why astute preparation is mandatory. You must have mental discipline and physical strength in order to withstand aggressive elbows, razor sharp dagger fingernails, gladiator attacks, insults from the enemy, high-jacking of your purchases and the fights over must-have items. So you can imagine that donning war gear is a matter of life or death! Here is one version of how you can return home without incidence or with minimal injuries and loss of hair.

To start, set your alarm clock to wake you 720 minutes before the shops open so that you will be the first to queue up for 25 hours in northern wind and rain, earthquake aftershocks and soup thick air pollution. Before heading for bed, get fully dressed (except for shoes) to save time. You will need Velcro© sneakers because flip-flops or thongs will not last two seconds: the soles will get smashed flatter than a pancake and the thongs will go flying between a hoard of legs…you might even find your feet missing a toe or two.

Next is the uniform: a pair of tattered jeans and T-shirt left over from the last sales, a worn out striptease bra and triple reinforced granny panties. Do not wear make-up; it will accentuate your swollen black eye. Omit hair jewelry as they could be used as weapons against you. Be sure to use heavy upholstery thread to attach your cash/bank card pouch to your panties…on the inside. Otherwise, during a scuffle with the enemy–no rule is the rule—you might end up arrested for indecent exposure.

Now to reach the summit of your shopping high, strut about with glaring haughtiness…proud to advertise famous brands by displaying oversized shopping bags that are cleverly designed to instigate jealousy and competitiveness in others and to encourage compulsive spending. Have you noticed how loudly they crinkle to draw attention? Big bags suggest you have spent 3000€ rather than 89€. That is why small items are loosely wrapped in extra large sheets of tissue paper…it stuffs the bag and gives it the appearance of fullness, which feeds your ego to appear privileged. Clever marketing, is it not?

Anyway, the seasonal sale promotion is nothing more than a highly effective marketing scheme to clear stock of stagnant or slow-moving merchandise. Have you noticed the normal price of standard articles? You will see that many are marked lower or at the same price of the on sale tag! Pay attention!

Back to the main point: Why do intelligent adults behave like Pavlov’s dogs?

According to various statistics over the years, women, slightly outnumbering men, are prone to compulsive shopping whether or not there are sales. They are apt to purchase objects to plug up holes of emptiness or to compensate for chronic dissatisfaction. Worse, they eagerly pay to be a guinea pig for experimental facial or whole body makeovers. Pharmaceutical and cosmetic medicine industries are in heaven! (I will elaborate on this in the next article.) To be fair, I do know of men who moonlight in order to make minimal payments on several almost maxed-out bank cards–they only wear haute couture and purchase the most expensive gadgets and pleasure technologies. So there you go.

Looking further, notice how people mindlessly trample over each other in a savage race to grab the most for the least. Only greed and arrogance can motivate you to “outsmart the merchant to get something for nearly nothing.” However, scarcity fears push you to spend foolishly in order to obtain limited editions of must-have stuff so you will be in step with other robots and hated by those who have not the means.

But functioning like a robot is unconsciousness. You are allowing other people to direct your behavior, tell you how to live, dictate your values and interests. That is to say, you are a willing slave of consumerism. Therefore, you have masters in other areas of your life. You are obsessed by the affairs of folks who do not value your attention because you are uninterested in your real self.

Now celebrate playing this game of life in any fashion that suits you in the moment. Just be CONSCIOUS, DELIBERATE and HONEST with you. Soon you will tire of the slave role and take responsibility for your own life. That is all I am suggesting.

Tell me: what are your insights, experiences? I would enjoy hearing from you.

So post your comments below before you forget. And if you find something useful in this blog, why not subscribe so you can receive email notification each time I publish a post. Also, I would be highly honored if you recommended this blog to others who might benefit. Thank you in advance.

Men Readers: Your comments are valuable too & highly welcomed! ;-))

Shall we meet up again in a few days?

Until then,

Allow happiness!

Tandi

Image credit: 1) © Mark Parisi, offthemark.com (from The Office – Rauno Villberg on Vimeo, shivaraichandani.blogspot.com); 2) Rene Baur 2001 oziserv.com/cleft

Copyright © 2010-2012 Thandiwe Chappot, thefemininefeminine®. All rights reserved worldwide.